Pain
by Ignis et Ventus
Summary: Iruka gives his students an exercise to explain one of the most important aspects of a Shinobi's life. 'What is the definition of pain'


YES!! It's official; Ventus has joined me in the wonderful world of one-shots! Is this not amazing news? She started writing it a while ago and then finished it in one day when we weren't doing anything at school. Anyways, I had my exclamation of joy at her joining me, so I'll now let you read the actual story in stead of what I would be saying to a professional if I had one.

Pain 

'What is the definition if pain?'

Various groans were heard in the classroom. The speaker at the front shook his head. 'No, no you said that an important aspect of a shinobi's life is his or her tolerance to pain. So, what does pain mean to you?'

A pink haired girl put her hand up while patiently waiting for the teacher to allow her to speak. The scarred man nodded towards her. 'Yes, Sakura?'

The girl smiled smugly and said, 'Well, pain is the feeling you get when you get physically hurt. It is caused by the nerve endings-'

Iruka held up his hand to cut her speech. 'That is correct, but not the answer I was searching for. Pain can be other than physical. Sometimes emotional pain can hurt and affect you much more than a wound would. Now, I want each of you to write on a piece of paper what you think pain is. I will be picking them up be the end of class.'

The class mumbled as the sound of paper tearing filled the air. Soon, silence reigned in the large room as the children started thinking of their answers.

Dark brows furrowed as a pale mouth released a long sigh. A young boy slowly lifted his head from its position on a desktop and groaned lowly. Finally, having reached an acceptable sitting position, Shikamaru grabbed a piece of paper from his neighbour's desk, ignoring the indignant shriek that accompanied his action. He then took his pen and wrote a few words. After a few seconds, he dropped it and let his head fall with a thump on the wooden desk. Lying motionless on the corner of a dirty, graffiti filled desk, a scrap of paper announced three words. 'Pain is troublesome.'

Slightly trembling hands clenched around a snow white paper. Pale lavender eyes swivelled to glance at every occupant of the large room as their owner nervously chewed on her lower lip. Finally, she took a deep breath and deposited the paper on the table in front of her. Taking a black pen, she slowly started writing, once in a while stopping to look at a blond boy in the corner of the class.

When she finished, she turned it face down and anxiously fidgeted with her fingers as she waited for the teacher to pick hers up. Black ink marred pure white in words that said, 'Pain is what you feel when you get hurt and need healing balm. Pain is also what some people feel when their loved ones leave.'

Sunlight glinted off dark glass as invisible eyes roamed a blank paper. A wooden pencil stood poised at the utmost right hand corner of the sheet, a small bug nestled on top of it. Slowly but surely, words started to form as the pencil moved in elegant, circular motions. After a few moments, the small creature bounced off of the stick and the boy leaned back against his chair, his stare drawn once again by the sights that the outdoors had to offer. Under Shino's name, a sentence said, 'Pain is what my bugs feel when they are squished.'

At their desks, on opposite sides of a broody dark haired boy, two girls were glaring fiercely at each other. Every once in a while both heads would duck and they would scribble furiously on their papers, one pink, one blue. Finally, one of the two smirked triumphantly and dropped her pen on her desk, her emerald eyes shining with taunting. The other girl blushed in anger and wrote one last sentence before calmly depositing her writing utensil on her desk and turning towards the board with her nose upturned.

On both papers, identical definitions could be found, however, on the pale blue one, one sentence stood different. Written in dark purple colour, the words, 'P.S. My definition is _much_ better than Sakura-forehead's' shone brightly.

In the farthest desk of the room, a boy was jittering slightly as he whispered to the puppy on his messy head. He reluctantly wrote the exercise and, once done, pushed the paper away as if burned by it and went back to playing with the small dog. On the paper that was teetering closely on the edge of the table, one could read, 'Pain is what my enemies feel when Akamaru and I kick their butts.'

Besides the boy, another child, a bit larger in proportion, nervously tapped on his desk as he tried to find something to write. In the end, as he saw the teacher start picking up everyone's papers, he quickly scribbled a few words down and went back to gnawing on his chips. The boy had written, 'Pain is when you eat so much that your parents have to take you to the hospital to get your stomach emptied.

In the front row, between the previously mentioned rivals, a raven haired boy stared blankly at his full paper. As his sensei picked it up while shooting him a worried glance, he remembered what he had written and a familiar feeling filled his body. 'Pain is what you feel in your chest when you wake up in the morning and you can't hear anything in your house. It's the feeling you get when you remember your childhood and you see how much has changed. It's when you loved someone and they betrayed you. It's when you don't have anyone to wish you a good morning or to bandage your wounds when you get hurt. Pain is abandon.'

Sitting opposite from the raven, another boy, blond this time, also possessed a blank look on his face. His paper, wrinkled and dirty, read, 'Pain is when your chest gets really tight when you get cold looks. It's what you feel when you try really hard only to fail again. It's the looks of disappointment you get from the people that matter the most to you. Pain is when you go back home on a rainy day and find everything trashed. It's what you feel when you're sitting on a swing watching families leave together while you're stuck. It's when you really want to cry when everyone laughs at you, but you smile instead. Pain is when you really want someone to see you, but instead they look away. It's wanting to be strong when you feel weak.'

A few years later, a dark haired man with a scar on his nose sat at his desk in the same classroom. In front of him lay the old exercises, written by hands still young and inexperienced. As he read over the different texts, he smiled nostalgically. As he reached the last two papers, a wave of sorrow washed over him and he let out an empty mirthless laugh at the irony of the situation. Naruto, who had ached not so long ago for recognition and power, and Sasuke that had suffered from abandon and betrayal, had now switched places. He could not stop the desperate sort of humour he felt as he remembered that the blonde seemed to have lost the spark in his eyes as he still searched for Sasuke. And he could not forget how the Uchiha had willingly abandoned his best friend for enough power to be acknowledged by his older brother.

In the end, all of his students had learned in their own ways the true definition of pain. But life would forever be unfair to the two who had always known its true meaning.


End file.
